Hold Me Now – Feel and Touch in an Unreal World

In January, February, and March 2018, through talks, performances, film screenings, reading groups, discussions, an exhibition of student works, and a conference-festival at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Studium Generale Rietveld Academie and Rietveld Uncut collaborate on an extensive, artistic research trajectory.

Studium Generale and Rietveld Uncut 2018 focus on touch in artistic, philosophical, and political terms to conceive how the haptic – relating to or based on touch – is thought and experienced in life, art and design, and theory.

Touch is of vital importance to our emotional and neurobiological development. So how do we feel and more specifically touch in our technologically mediated dematerialized digital cultures? Do we solely stroke and swipe our screens? How is the body and its feel involved? Are we in fact cultivating different tactilities in relation to the world and others? Further, how can we trace the ways in which touch informs and reforms the body with respect to violence, gender, sexuality, democracy, and identity? If art and design have privileged sight and sound, should touch – and all the senses – be addressed and activated in order to help us stay ‘in touch’ with our bodies and the material world?

Talks, readings, presentations, performances, screenings: Karen Archey, Army of Love, boychild, Rizvana Bradley, Sarah Browne, Staci Bu Shea, Fiona Candlin, Holly Childs, Yvonne Dröge Wendel, João Florêncio, Ioanna Gerakidi, Ine Gevers, Amelia Groom, Jack Halberstam, Jort van der Laan, Erin Manning, Laura U. Marks, Marianna Maruyama, Mark Paterson, Paul Preciado, Joke Robaard, Charlotte Rooijackers, Eloise Sweetman, Wu Tsang, Hypatia Vourloumis, Eyal Weizman and many others.

Preliminary Programme at Rietveld:
January 10, 17, 31
February 7, 14, 21
March 7, 14

13:30-15:30 Wednesday afternoon programme with talks, presentations and performances at the Rietveld Gym
16:00 Feeling the Feeling - Beamclub screenings at the Rietveld Gym
17:00 Reading Groups (library and room 116) and Chatroom (Rietveld Gym)

Conference-festival and Rietveld Uncut at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam:
March 21–24